Charmed and Disarmed
by Caz251
Summary: Filius Flitwick has been looking for the perfect apprentice, he finds a bit more than that in the end.


Written for the rare pairs challenge at 1 million words

Filius Flitwick was a renowned duelling champion, he had even duelled in the goblin duelling circuits and won, despite only being part goblin himself, and was highly sought as a duelling tutor. When he had decided to teach at Hogwarts many had expected him to take up the Defence position, however it was Charms that held his passion and he had taken over as the Charms Professor.

He still took on students during the summer for tutoring in the art of duelling, but he was also looking for an apprentice to teach both duelling and charms, so far he hadn't found one. He wanted someone eager to take on both a duelling and charms apprenticeship, but so far he had only found students that would be capable of one or the other, not both.

When he finally did find a student that he found promising he was unable to take her on as an apprentice. Lily Evans was a charms protégé and was no slouch when it came to duelling either, even though she came from a completely muggle background. Her roots bothered him little, he wasn't a pureblood wizard either and that wasn't what kept him from apprenticing her, but rather the war.

Lily had married James Potter almost straight out of Hogwarts and they had thrown themselves into helping the war effort, although Lily withdrew more after the birth of her child. Her death was of great sadness to him, as it put an end to the chance that could have been. Lily Evans would have been a fine legacy for him. Instead he continued to look, finding the best students in his classes and finding their level of skill in defence from whoever was in residence as a teacher that year. If they showed promise he would approach them, but many already had defined career goals and weren't interested in extending their time at Hogwarts learning from him.

He had finally given up looking for a student when one had found him. Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons had approached him during the Triwizard Tournament asking him to consider her as a possible apprentice. She wanted to apprentice herself to a master in Britain so that she could improve her English, and knew of his reputation as a Charms Master. He had told her he would consider it if she would consider doing a double mastery in Charms and Duelling.

After many years he appeared to have found his student. They had come to an agreement by the end of the Triwizard Tournament and signed a contract before she had left to return to France with her school. She would return a few weeks into the summer holidays to begin learning from him. He hadn't taken on a tutoring job that summer, instead preparing for Fleur's arrival and preparing early for the new school year in order to have more time free to teach Fleur.

She was a breath of fresh air to him, he had seen her performance in the tournament of course, but hadn't had much interaction with her other than observing her performance. Now that he was spending time with her teaching her everyday and with her living in a room in his quarters he got to see just how illuminating she was.

She spent most of her free time with him as well, although she had committed to helping out in the Order of Phoenix, so she left for meetings regularly. He expected once that had happened she would spend more of her free time out of the castle with some of the younger crowd, he knew that Bill Weasley was running around Britain again and that Nymphadora Tonks was always up for a good time out. He had assumed that Fleur would want to join them in their escapades, but she had shown no such inclination. Instead she stayed in the castle with him.

He had questioned her about it once, but she had informed him that the majority of the British were too rowdy for her tastes and that she was quite content to spend her time in the castle with him. Any other time he tried to mention her taking up pursuits outside the castle she shut the conversation down.

It was Severus who pointed out the obvious that he appeared to have been missing. In a meeting of the Heads of Houses before the school term began Severus had pointed out that he seemed to be missing his little veela who seemed to be permanently attached to him like a lovesick little girl. He knew that Severus was just being snarky, it was just the way he was , but it made Filius think.

Thoughts of Fleur soon dominated his mind, watching as she did little things, the way she stirred her tea or what she did with her hair. He seemed to watch her constantly to see if there were any signs of her interest in him. He didn't think that he could see any, but if Severus had seen something enough to make the comment then there must be something there.

Regardless of how she felt towards him, the continued scrutinisation of her was bringing things about her that he liked to his attention, and he found himself developing feelings for her. He wasn't the first Master to fall for their apprentice so it wasn't something taboo, in fact there were entire sections of rules relating to romantic or even just physical relationships between Masters and Apprentices.

Now he just had to figure out how to approach the subject with her, he didn't know how she would react even if she was perhaps attracted to him. He a part-goblin approaching a part-veela was completely unheard of within their society and a relationship between them probably wouldn't be looked at favourably by society, but then again any relationship either of them were involved in with someone not of their own ilk would be looked at unfavourably by the majority of wizarding Britain.

Once the war was over and Hogwarts reopened Filius finally took up a Defence position of sorts. He had convinced the board to reintroduce the duelling course to the curriculum and taught that, while his wife taught Charms. She had certainly charmed and disarmed him, she could teach the future generations the charms curriculum, and perhaps on occasion they could join their classes and teach duelling and charms in conjunction with one another.


End file.
